The Last Survivors Trilogy by Susan Beth Pfeffer

If you haven't read this YA Post-Apocalyptic trilogy by Susan Beth  Pfeffer, you should.  The books are a few years old now, but there's nothing in them that makes them dated. 

The first book in the trilogy is Life As We Knew It (2006, Harcourt Children's).  It tells the story of teenager Miranda living with her single mother and two brothers in Pennsylvania.  A meteor hits the moon knockings it's orbit closer to earth.  This sets off a series of events that are catastrophic.  Tsunamis wipe out coastal cities, earthquakes shake the entire planet and volcanoes long dormant start to erupt.  All of this seismic activity brings about major climactic change.  Life As We Knew It chronicles Miranda's daily struggle to survive when everyone around her is dying.

The Dead and the Gone (2008, Harcourt Children's) is the second book in the trilogy.  Instead of continuing Miranda's story, it tells the story of Alex Morales, living in New York city with his two sisters.  His father was in Puerto Rico the day of the meteor strike and his mother was at work and never heard from again.  As the oldest Alex has to make tough decisions to take care of his two sisters.  Alex lived in an apartment building that his father was the manager of.  His unwillingness to break into other apartments annoyed me.  I understood that he was proud and didn't want to damage his father's building, but seriously, I would have been ripping open walls if the doors couldn't be broken down.  That aside, I liked this contrast of surviving in the city versus Miranda's suburban story.

The third book, This World We Live In (2010, Harcourt Children's) ties the two stories together.  In the first book Miranda's father stops by to tell his children that he is going to try to go out west with his new wife.  The third book has Miranda's father coming back with Alex and one of his sisters and another traveling companion that they met while on the road.  They met Alex when he had gone looking for other relatives for his sister to stay with while he looked for work.  Finding neither, Alex decided to stick with Miranda's dad while he traveled back to the Northeast.   While Miranda is happy to have her father back, it puts a strain on everyone because the food is scarce and the weather is getting worse.  This book was really emotional.  Pfeffer really put the screws to her characters in this one.

I've been calling this a trilogy, but I decided to do a little poking around about this series.  Turns out, there might be a book 4.  Shade of the Moon is tentatively scheduled for release in the fall of 2013.  I promise I'll be all over that when it comes out. 

Blood Wounds

by:  Susan Beth Pfeffer

published by:  Harcourt Children's

publish date:  September 12, 2011

Willa is lucky: She has a loving blended family that gets along. Not all families are so fortunate. But when a bloody crime takes place hundreds of miles away, it has an explosive effect on Willa’s peaceful life. The estranged father she hardly remembers has murdered his new wife and children, and is headed east toward Willa and her mother.

Under police protection, Willa discovers that her mother has harbored secrets that are threatening to boil over. Has everything Willa believed about herself been a lie? As Willa sets out to untangle the mysteries of her past, she keeps her own secret—one that has the potential to tear her family apart.

This was a rather short book, but it packed a really powerful punch.  I read the entire book in one sitting.  I was so absorbed in the story I couldn't put it down.  It dealt with the issue of blended families which is one that you don't really see very much of in YA, usually the parents are mostly or completely absent in YA books, but in this one it seemed like there was an overabundance of them.

The second paragraph of the provided synopsis is a little misleading I think.  I don't think Willa's mother was really harboring secrets.  That kind of sounds sinister.  I think she was just trying to leave her past behind her and not think about Willa's father anymore.  Also, Willa is keeping her own secret, but I don't think it has the potential to tear her family apart. 

That said, this book was one of the most unique contemporary YA books I've read in quite awhile.  I have part of the Life As We Knew It series at home.  I need to get on the ball and read it because if it's as good as this was, it'll be a treat!